She
by DynnaChae
Summary: Be careful what you wish for...


Hi! I don't own Lain! I don't even know her! Don't sue me unless my kidneys are of good use. This is Chapter 1 of a multipart story and it may be a bit inaccurate but just deal with it, ne?  
~~~~~~~~~~~  
Present Day  
Present Time  
  
"If I had a choice, life would be more like the Wired. Everything goes so smooth there, ya know?" She flicked her cigarette ashes into a glass ash tray placed under her hand by the bartender. "People would get along. We'd have one god. One religion. One peaceful existence." She took a long drag of her cigarette and slowly exhaled, throwing her head back and studying her surroundings. It was a dark bar with a few overhead lamps attached to swiveling ceiling fans. Two truckers played pool in the back corner. Neon lights hummed in the window as they flickered on and off. The bartender stood expressionless in a corner and dried a glass with a filthy bar towel. She brought her head back up to face the bartender again who was unconsciously working his fingers into the glass trying to dry all the corners. "We'd all be connected... in the Wired."  
  
The glass fell from the bartender's narrow fingers. It hit the ground, shattering into a million pieces. She sat up and looked at the bartender who was still working his hands in a motion as if he was cleaning a glass. The truckers continued playing their game of pool as if there was no disturbance in the bar. She looked around. A young girl had pulled a chair up the television stationed atop a shelf. She was lightly tapping the screen perhaps trying to fix it. Static was all she got. The woman turned her attention back to the bartender who was still going through the motions of cleaning a glass.   
  
"Prefabricated." came a voice from nowhere.  
  
The woman turned around and looked towards the voice. In the darkness of the bar the woman could see nothing but what light the static from the television gave off. "What?"  
  
"Yet... inconsistent" the voice continued.  
  
The woman stood up and felt her way through the darkness of the bar to the back where she was sure the voice was coming from. All she found was the little girl lightly tapping on the television. "Did you say something little girl?"  
  
The little girl rested her forehead against the television set "You're all just lab rats."  
  
The woman stood there and watched as the little girl tapped on the television. "Are you all right?"  
  
The young girl's soft and gentle expression of concern for the television turned into one of a hardened, angry look. She wound her hand back and balled her tiny fingers into a fist. The truckers seemed to take on the same expression she had. Their faces bent into cruel and unfeeling looks of pain and hatred. The bartender roughly worked his hand in swirling motions as if he was trying to get a hard to remove spot off a glass. His expression, aggravated and wrathful matched the girl's. Her fingers balled, the little girl pulled back as much as it could go.  
  
"IMCOMPLETE!" The girl brought her fist around and smashed it straight through the television.   
  
The woman staggered back and turned to run. The bartender had stopped cleaning his imaginary glass and advanced slowly towards her. The little girl stood emotionless with her fist still in the broken television set as she watched the woman run around the bartender and out of the bar. She looked around the empty lot. Outside had become eerily silent. She looked around for where she parked her car but it was nowhere to be found. She thought nothing of it and, in a desperate attempt to escape, she fled out of the parking lot and down the road. The scenery had changed. There were no more busy city streets and bright neon lights. There was only road and more road. Pitch blackness extended out everywhere in front of her. She decided to try and walk a straight line to find help.   
  
She walked for about an hour in what she though was a straight line. What she found was that she was right back where she began. The neon lights of the bar illuminated the wet parking lot pavement. The bartender stood at the window gazing at her. Not at her. Straight through her. He seemed to be looking beyond her to the blackness behind her. The woman fell to her knees and sobbed. She picked herself up off the ground and looked straight. Her eyes followed the neon signs up the dirty glass windows, pass the bricks and the shingles. Her horrified eyes rested their gaze on the name of the bar.   
  
"The Wired"  
  
She brought her eyes back down to the flickering neon signs in each window. The left one came to her attention first.   
"Open 24 hours."  
  
And then the right one.  
  
"We're always connected."  
  
Her shriek pierced the night only to be absorbed in the blackness of her new home. The Wired.  
  
~~~~~~  
  
Lain held the manual between two teeth as she restored old cords and put new chips in her Navi. Her room was a hacker's heaven. Long cords were draped from her stuffed bear collection, her telephone dangled from the ceiling and was attached to a large machine that had plugs and switches that extended from every direction. A large hole in her wall allowed fresh air to get in and computer wires to get out. Her cooling system was dripping water all over the place. Lain, clad in a flimsy slip dress, climbed through wires to hang some up on her bookshelf full of manuals. A lone teddy bear sat next to her Navi. The Navi scrolled screen savers of dancing teddy bears along the screen with a Cyberia mix pumping full blast in the CD ROM.  
  
Satisfied with her work Lain turned to face her Navi. "Hello Navi"  
  
The screen saver stopped and the music lowered itself. "Hello Lain. You have mail."  
  
"Open it please." The girl sat herself at her computer desk.  
  
The message read: "I know I wanted this. I never knew it would come true. Virtual utopia and I have it. But I never knew it would be like this. It's scary and dark. I'm so alone. Please help me. I'm stuck... in the Wired."  
  
Signed "She"  
  
"Lain, Nintendoboy336 has sent you an instant message" Navi alerted the girl.  
  
"Please open it." Lain pulled one foot up onto her chair.  
  
Nintendoboy336: Lain, you there?  
  
Lain sat silent for a second, then leaned over and typed "Yes."  
  
Nintendoboy336: What are you doing tonight?  
  
Teddy Bear: ...Nothing.  
  
Nintendoboy336: Come to Cyberia. They have a new DJ tonight. I'll save you a dance.  
  
Teddy Bear: I don't dance  
  
Nintendoboy336: You never know until you try.  
  
Teddy Bear: What time?  
  
Nintendoboy: I'm sneaking out at midnight.  
  
Lain rested her chin against her knee before typing again.  
  
Teddy Bear: I got mail from someone today. They said they're stuck in the Wired.  
  
Nintendoboy: It's spam. Nevermind it. Just meet me at Cyberia.  
  
Teddy Bear: OK.  
  
Nintendoboy: Great. See you there. I have to go for now.   
  
Teddy Bear: So long.  
  
Lain pulled her pink sweater over her shoulders and descended her stairs. Her parents sat watching the TV and Mika wriggled her fingers and made beeping sounds.   
  
"I'm going out..." Lain spoke barely above a whisper.  
  
There was no response.  
  
She sighed and walked out of the door. Lain walked down the streets as the lights above cast shadows of mailboxes and signs on the ground. The humming of power lines were the only noise, or so she thought. Faint footsteps of someone running sounded as if they were coming closer and closer. Lain turned around. A shadowed figure could be seen dashing towards her. The woman caught up to her and screamed in her face.  
  
Lain drew back "Do you need help ma'am?"  
  
The woman stopped sobbing and looked at her "You can see me?"  
  
"Yes." Lain relaxed herself and looked at the woman.  
  
"Please help me!!!" the woman grabbed onto Lain's sweater and sobbed uncontrollably.  
  
Lain stood there and tried to make sense of it all.  
  
"I'm stuck in the wired!" The woman continued to sob.  
  
Lain smiled to herself and turned to walk away "We're all stuck in the wired." She proceeded to Cyberia.  
  
As quickly as the woman appeared, she vanished.  
  
The rhythmic vibrations of Cyberia pumped through the walls as Lain made her way to the door. She headed to the usual table where her friends were waiting for her.   
  
"Did you hear about the new virus going through the wired?" One of the guys asked  
  
Lain nodded "Yea it's too weird. It seems to grant your wishes... but twists them so that you eventually regret wishing for whatever you wished for. Supposedly created by a rogue Knight that calls herself 'She'. It taps into your brainwaves and searches for your innermost desires, making them come true but then distorting them so that you go insane. She's motive is to display her power over the Wired, yet no one seems to know who she is."  
  
A boy Lain had never seen approached the four kids conversing over the new Virus. His appearance was very neat. Almost too neat. Suspiciously neat. His hair, parted on the side and combed over sat perfectly atop his head. His green eyes sparkled as he graciously bowed to Lain and her friends. "Forgive me for intruding, but I heard you speak of She, the ex-Knights member who has created a virus. Allow me to introduce myself, I am Alexander Yohama"  
  
Lain tilted her head slightly "What do you know about her?"  
  
Alexander leaned on the table and thought for a minute "She's very powerful. Rumor has it that she was thrown out of the Knights for trying to take over the operation. She had underground connections. Do you know about The Aladdin Project?"  
  
Lain shook her head in a no fashion  
  
The boy looked at her friends then smiled and bowed courteously "Lain do you think we could speak in private and somewhere it's more quiet?"  
  
Lain glanced around him at her friends who silently nodded. She extended her hand to show Alexander a place to pass through the dancers. They walked towards the train tracks and sat under the humming power lines.  
  
Lain sat up and looked at Alexander "So what is The Aladdin Project?"  
  
Alexander placed his hands on his lap and looked directly into Lain's eyes "It was said to be the project that would change the world. Powered through the wired, people would have all their dreams and hopes come true. I'm not surprised you haven't heard about it. It's very underground. It was a silent project and no one spoke of it. It was run by a woman and a few of her friends that had secret intentions in the Knights. This program acted as a virus that you received in your subconscious. It would mostly attack sleeping people in their dreams." Alexander laughed "The only thing was that it was so hard to get it into people's minds because they would have to fall asleep at their computer WHILE connected to the Wired in order for the virus to transfer to the human brain. So you see, it was pretty much rare and next to impossible for someone to get infected other than the rare ultra lazy person. Once the Knights discovered that She was working on this project they exiled her and her friends. They held onto the project in attempts to make it work on their own. Once they learned the difficulty of getting the virus implanted in brains they scrapped the whole project and never even thought twice about it."  
  
Lain put her hand out "How do you know all of this? I mean, if it's not spoken about... how are you so knowledgeable about this?"  
  
Alexander smiled "Don't worry about me. I have connections with some pretty nosy people."  
  
"Oh... I see." Lain lowered her head. "And... She has started up this project again?"  
  
"She never stopped the project. With backup disks and materials she stole from the Knights she was able to keep her project running and attack the right kind of people." Alexander leaned forward "Turn your computer off Lain. Turn it off every night. They'll get smart and soon they'll figure out how to control your computer from their side. They'll turn it on and connect you to the wired and everyone will get infected." The boy spoke with a hint of fear  
  
Lain pondered this for a second "But wait. You've told me of this project but you haven't told me about why people start to go crazy."  
  
Alexander cleared his throat "Quite simply, the project isn't finished, isn't refined and isn't stable. The people infected are just test dummies until they perfect it. I fear that time is nearing."  
  
Lain shook her head again "But what's wrong with having your wishes come true? I mean, if they haven't perfected it and that's the reason people are going nuts... by the time they perfect it, it will be a good thing and not a bad thing."  
  
Alexander smiled "You never get something for nothing Lain. You should know that. You'll get your wish granted... but through mind control, anything is possible and very important people can do very important things for a certain She, do you follow me? Placing that kind of power into the hands of a woman like that would create great devastation."  
  
Lain and Alexander looked up at the power lines. Alexander stood up and extended his hand to help Lain up. "You never heard any of this. I only speak what I know in hopes of finding this She person and stopping her. Please never mention anything I've said to you to anyone."  
  
Lain took his hand and stood up "I promise I will not speak of what you told me. But why me? Why tell me all about this."  
  
Alex smiled "There's something about you Lain."  
  
The boy bowed slightly at the waist and turned on his heel. He walked away as Lain watched him disappear into the night. "I never... told you my name. How did you know it?"  
  
The only response she got was the humming of the power lines. Lain turned back and headed towards Cyberia.  
  
  
~~~  
End of Chapter 1. Chapter 2 is still in the process of being written but I'll have it ready. Let me know how it's going so far.  
DC(01)  
  
  



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